Fukushima Daiichi Water Dropping in Basement - Unexplained

[Yo_Mama]

As far as I can find out. What this article isn't saying is that core could have gone right through the basement and created its own tunnel:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110602005193.htm

[caraher]

1. It's also not saying Godzilla drank it

The real question I have is, who says the core has done anything like that? What the article does say is this:

The water level, which had risen 376 millimeters in the 24 hours from 7 a.m. on Monday, fell one millimeter in the following 24 hours, and plunged 79 millimeters from 7 a.m. Wednesday to 7 a.m. on Thursday.

So the water level is fluctuating. I'm not sure how a 3.76 m rise in 24 hours followed by no change for 24 hours followed by a 0.79 meter fall in 12 hours fits into the scenario you're trying to suggest.

[FBaggins]

2. They've been seeing cores melting through to the water table for almost three months now

If there was an article that said that radio reception in Tokyo had declined by 10% over the last week, someone here would postulate that a core had melted through all containment and was itnerfering with radio waves.

Of course recriticality would also now be "admitted" by Japan as well. Everyone knows that's the only way that corium can bend radio waves.

[Yo_Mama]

3. They've been steadily rising except

for when the water is being pumped out. Water levels rose sharply at all the lower locations because of the storm - this is the only one that is now dropping without intervention. TEPCO has conceded that the water injected into the reactor is finding its way down into the basement, so water is constantly being added to the basement. This drop was not due to pumping - therefore the water is exiting the basement.

There are two issues here:
1) The water in the basement fell into the "highly contaminated" category, so now TEPCO has an unanticipated leakage problem. They can't stop injecting water into the reactor, so they have to find the leak ASAP. Their recontainment plan was to pump water out of the basement, run it through decontamination, and then inject it back into the reactor to form a type of cooling circuit.

2) What caused the damage? Perhaps a pre-existing crack widened, although it is hard to see why that would happen now.

Regardless of the cause of the damage, the fact that this has happened means that the plan to deal with reactor 1 is not going to work.

Edit to add link to JAIF document:
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1307006763P.pdf

Note that the reason given for three inches of water level drop (it's a big basement) was "steam and evaporation". This seems hard to credit, and if it is true something has changed dramatically. They also say they can't get into the basement to check because it is too radioactive there.